


a certain solid fragrance

by Good0mens



Series: sonnet xvii [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Bottom Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Bottom Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Canon Queer Character of Color, Canon Queer Relationship, Character Study, Explicit Sexual Content, Felching, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Immortality, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova Acting Like a Married Couple, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova are in Love, Kinda?, Light Angst, M/M, Nicky | Nicolò di Genova Loves Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, POV Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Porn With Plot, Relationship Study, Rimming, Top Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Top Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, fruit (derogatory), orange (derogatory)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:28:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29036223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Good0mens/pseuds/Good0mens
Summary: "Yusuf hums non-committedly, pulling away from Nicolò to lean back against the bench beside him. He digs out an arancia, the citrus sweet smell filling Nicolò’s nostrils, and rolls it around in his palms absentmindedly. Nicolò catches his eye and raises one questioning eyebrow.They definitely don’t have enough between them to afford an indulgence such as this, unless Yusuf traded some of his labour or artwork for it. But Nicolò knows that the only orange blossom tree that grows in this village belongs to a merchant family, and their youngest daughter has been covering the stall. Which means-“A gift, Nicolò. Isn’t that nice?” Yusuf says in way of answer, pleasant and naïvely pleased in a way that Nicolò usually finds endearing."In which Yusuf is gifted with oranges, and Nicolo has a minor crisis.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: sonnet xvii [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2153466
Comments: 106
Kudos: 490





	a certain solid fragrance

**Author's Note:**

> AHH it's here! 3 or so breakdowns later, I have pushed this one out. The first part of this is from a prompt that I've posted here in 'where the spirit meets the bones' because the idea just wouldn't leave me alone and I needed to expand on it.
> 
> PLEASE read the tags, not for any warnings, just because I think I'm funny and you should too. 
> 
> Anyway, this fic took a lot of effort to get out of me, and I'm super proud of myself for sticking it out and finishing it.

Yusuf’s head is on his thigh, and Nicolò is peering down at the mess of curls and freckles, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. There’s darkness filling up the room, grasping at the edges, greedy and sodden. Nicolò is wading through it, waist deep.

Yusuf’s painful eyes, begging, demanding - _look at me._

(Where else

would I

look?)

Who else could put this yearning ache, this yawning void, in his stomach? What else is there, but Yusuf?

Nicolò thinks about the eyes that linger on Yusuf in the marketplace, the generous smiles and offerings. Yusuf doesn’t seem to notice, or if he does, he doesn’t comment on it to Nicolò, just brushes his shoulders as they walk through the square.

Jealousy tastes like burnt sugar – demanding, bitter, sticking to the roof of his mouth. It can only be dissolved by Yusuf’s mouth on his, by his attention on Nicolò. As of late, things have been fraught between them; windows flung open, filling the evening air with fervent fucking that leaves Nicolò feeling more on edge than before they began.

(Can you love me, even like this?

 _I can’t love you any other way_.)

Not that Nicolò can blame anyone for looking; the world dances beneath Yusuf’s feet, shakes and trembles under each step. Right now, his hands are parting the great canyon of Nicolò’s thighs, running his fingers along the rising plateau of his hips.

Yusuf touches the soft skin on the back of his knee and not for the first time, Nicolò is reminded of just how fragile this body really is.

_I want you to turn me inside out; hook my ankles over your shoulders, hook your fingers inside of me and drag out every inconsolable sound. Reach into me deeper than the torment of your moon-struck gaze._

Nicolò swallows. Are they bound together by some greater purpose? Would they choose each other, if there was anyone else? If they met in some other time, some other place.

Would Yusuf want him?

There’s oil dripping from between his cheeks. Yusuf is staring down at him, eyes darker than midnight as he opens Nicolò up on his slender fingers. His other hand is curling around Nicolò’s thigh.

_If you could leave a mark on me, what would it look like?_

_Is it shaped like your mouth, or a handprint – does it hurt the same way the absence of it does? Does it hurt better?_

The first push in is exquisite. As is the next one, and the one after that. There’s hitching breaths and harsh gasps into each other’s mouths. It’s a selfish, dark thing thrumming in him now. 500 years, and no one else has known Yusuf’s body like this. Only Nicolò.

(Say my name.

_Nicolò._

Again _._ )

He is Phaeton, falling out of the sky, hands outstretched toward the sun.

Yusuf’s face is pressed into his neck now, so he can’t see the pinch of Nicolò’s brow or his slack mouth, but he swivels his hips in harder before Nicolò can think to ask him for it. When Nicolò cries out, Yusuf does it again.

* * *

Nicolò is looking out the small window of their cottage, with the streets of the village laid out before them in rows and roads. Their little home is on the edges of the town, at the end of a long garden path.

He can see Yusuf walking along it now, tight ringlets billowing slightly in the wind – Nicolò makes a note to remind himself to shave his beard, which is growing a little scraggly around the edges of his jaw. He’s holding the small rucksack he’d brought out with him, now bursting full of meats and produce from the market.

Glancing back down at the cutting board, Nicolò uses the flat edge of the blade to crush the garlic clove underneath it. He has to pause and tuck a stray bit of hair behind his ear, which has also been growing a little long. He can’t bring himself to cut it short just yet, not with the way Yusuf likes to curl his fingers around the strands when he’s making love to Nicolò.

The bag is heaved onto the counter beside him, breaking him from his thoughts. Steady, strong hands slide around his waist and Nicolò leans into the solid embrace of Yusuf behind him.

“Missed you, hayati,” Yusuf mumbles into the back of his neck.

Nicolò can’t help but grin. Everything with Yusuf has always felt like it lies on the verge of some vast, unnameable feeling, always ready to come forth at any moment and lay waste to his every sense.

“How was the market today?”

Yusuf hums non-committedly, pulling away from Nicolò to lean back against the bench beside him. He digs out an _arancia,_ the citrus sweet smell filling Nicolò’s nostrils, and rolls it around in his palms absentmindedly. Nicolò catches his eye and raises one questioning eyebrow.

They definitely don’t have enough between them to afford an indulgence such as this, unless Yusuf traded some of his labour or artwork for it. But Nicolò knows that the only orange blossom tree that grows in this village belongs to a merchant family, and their youngest daughter has been covering the stall. Which means-

“A gift, Nicolò. Isn’t that nice?” Yusuf says in way of answer, pleasant and naïvely pleased in a way that Nicolò usually finds endearing.

“It’s very nice,” Nicolò agrees amiably, “why don’t you put all this away and I’ll finish up with our supper? Maybe if you’re inclined to share your gift, we could split it for dessert.”

Yusuf smiles brightly. “Of course - what’s mine is yours.”

 _You are mine_ , Nicolò’s traitorous mind supplies. _No one else’s._

There is no part of Nicolò that isn’t also part of Yusuf. The way he fights, the way he sleeps, everything is tied up in their love. It’s all over him, inside him, inside his chest, cracking him open along his sternum, underneath him, _everywhere._

Nicolò looks out the window to the sun, severed by the horizon and bleeding across the sky, then down at the countertop, where Yusuf has left the single unassuming orange, navel rolled up to face the ceiling.

He’s filled suddenly with the urge to know what takes up Yusuf’s mind, wants to know that it’s _him_ that takes up his mind, consumes his every thought, for it to be thronged with thwaites of Nicolò’s love in weeds and wildflowers.

* * *

Have his palms ever been kissed by the sun? They have now, as Yusuf presses his lips there before gripping his hand. It blazes a cupid’s bow brand into his open hand.

Nicolò can still taste the _arancia_ , the lingering tartness in the gaps of his teeth. It irks him, the way it still persists past the salt and musk of Yusuf’s cock in his mouth. His tongue is running over it like a sugar blister in his mouth; pressing, incessant and insistent against the wound just to feel the sting of it.

He pulls off to bury his face in the space between Yusuf’s thigh and hip and inhales deeply. Yusuf’s other hand is playing with his hair, sending shivers down his spine. He cut his teeth and heart on Yusuf’s blade, and his guts are raw and raked through with love as deep and painful as that first incision.

The first language they shared was violence. The next was the way Yusuf extended out his hand to help Nicolò up from the ground – what he means is, they’ve always spoken first with their bodies before using their words.

He’s got a clumsy tongue, slurring at the edges from darkening desire, but he puts it to good use now as he parts his lips and takes Yusuf back into his mouth. He works his jaw only a little more than necessary, just to feel the ache of him, just to feel anything but the deranged kind of despair in his gut.

It doesn’t take long for Yusuf to spill in his mouth and finally, _finally,_ Nicolò can only taste _him._ He swallows it all up eagerly, then slides up to Yusuf and kisses him, trying to share the taste of Yusuf on his tongue, the evidence of Nicolò’s efforts, his mouth, his love.

There has to be something leftover somewhere, he thinks. Something they can touch and see on each other. Something that says they were here, that they loved each other, here, and here, and-

Yusuf brings a hand down and wraps it around Nicolò’s cock, stroking up and down until Nicolò is shaking in his arms. He pulls the orgasm from Nicolò with his elegant fingers and talented mouth. Nicolò has always been completely hopeless to resist him, like destiny threading around their bodies, drawing them together.

-

Later, the breeze bringing the smell of orange blossoms from outside their window, Nicolò intertwines their hands.

(I don’t know if love is built to last.

_Neither were we, my love._

And yet.

 _And yet_.)

* * *

The first thing Nicolò sees when he comes into Yusuf’s studio are orange rinds. The white strings clinging underneath the tough skin, curled into themselves on the floor, leading to Yusuf’s bare back. There’s a whole basket of them by his side, and a brush held in one of his slender hands.

By his feet are an assortment of paints; orange-honey and marigold and tangerine hues smudged on a wooden palette. There’s some of it on Yusuf’s fingertips and a bit just underneath his jaw, by his ear. There’s pale pinks and yellows that he’s mixing with the paintbrush; blushed like skin, like the beige of his forearm, like the pink tip of his cock.

But on the canvas, Yusuf is not recreating an image of Nicolò’s body like he has come to expect of his lover, but instead is doing a study of the halved orange. Nicolò can clearly see the white line down the middle of the lung shaped pair, the veins of the fruit practically breathing, brimming with vividness. It’s beautiful, but.

That feeling is back, the acidic, tart-mouthed bitterness eating up his stomach. The slow drip of juice squeezed in his clenched fists.

_Look at me._

“More oranges?”

He wants to hold the _arancia_ in his hands and split it open, to cleave it from the rough flesh, to peel the skin from the citrus with his thumbs. Wants to make Yusuf throb with just the curl of his index and middle finger.

“I confessed to eating the last one she gave me before getting a chance to study it.” Yusuf still hasn’t so much as glanced up at him, is still staring at the damned orange.

“So she gave you a whole basket?”

Nicolò is sick to death with the smell. It’s too sweet, saccharine and dripping with an oppressive, pungent aroma.

“Hmm. Are you hungry?”

“No.” (Starving. It’s a gaping sore that needs to be filled. A carved-up, hollowed husk of a fruit.)

He rubs one of the leaves from the fruit tree between his wilted fingers. Thinks about the way it shivers in the breeze and the way Yusuf shivers when he runs his lips down Yusuf’s soft stomach.

Nicolò clenches his jaw indignantly. It feels like he’s been exiled from his own body, giving himself over to the feeling of possessiveness running through him, overtaking him.

Would she smell like oranges? Would she be sweet to taste, dripping with it in a way that Nicolò’s body will never do? Would it be oh so easy to slide between her legs and get underneath the ovary wall of her skin – would she bear fruit for Yusuf, ripe and blossoming, a gift Nicolò could never give him?

The orange will rot eventually, will decay and be taken back into the earth. As will she. But Nicolò won’t; _they_ won’t –

_Is that a gift or a curse?_

* * *

They have to make use of the oranges somehow, Nicolò reasons with himself; rather in truth, some dark thing in his heart wants Yusuf to smell the citrus fruit and think of nothing but Nicolò’s cock, buried deep inside him.

Yusuf quirks his head to the side slightly when Nicolò grabs the bowl of cut-up wedges beside the bed, a little befuddled, but it quickly bleeds into interest as Nicolò settles more firmly into his lap. They’re both already naked, and half-hard, the morning sun spilling out on the sheets.

He holds one slice out to Yusuf’s mouth and drags it across his lips, leaving a slight shine from the syrup across it. He waits until Yusuf parts them and then he feeds the piece of orange to him slowly, watching the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows it down. The next one he feeds to Yusuf, he does so with a hand to his throat so he can _feel_ it.

Then he chases the taste, tongue dipping inside as he kisses Yusuf deeply. He cups his face firmly, burnt orange fingertips pressing into his jaw so he can keep him at the angle he needs. When he pulls away, Yusuf lifts his head to try and catch him in another kiss, and Nicolò feels intoxicated with power, plucking sweetness from the arbour of those broad shoulders.

He picks out another wedge and slides it over a nipple, smiling when Yusuf hisses at the coolness. He leans down and swirls his tongue around to catch the cloying nectar. He feels Yusuf’s hands in his hair and almost moans in anticipation. Then he trails it down Yusuf’s chest until it rests over Yusuf’s belly button. He follows the line with his lips, catching the piece in his mouth before dipping his tongue into Yusuf’s navel.

Yusuf grips his hair a little tighter and Nicolò feels his stomach tighten underneath his mouth in anticipation. Nicolò takes another piece and drags it over Yusuf’s erect cock.

“ _Oh,_ Nicolò,” Yusuf groans.

He slides it up and down, then rubs it along the underside of his wet, exposed tip. There’s fluid running down his fingers, gathering in the dips of his knuckles. Nicolò glances up the line of Yusuf’s body and catches those dark eyes watching him intently. _Good._

“Do you want to taste how hard you are for me?”

A jerky nod accompanied by a delicious whine.

Nicolò serves Yusuf the slice, moaning when he takes Nicolò’s fingers into his mouth and sucks off the taste from there too. His tongue flicks around his digits, licking and slurping obscenely. Nicolò has to fist his own cock to relieve some of the pressure, endlessly turned on from Yusuf’s warm and wet mouth.

“Perfect. _Il mio_ ,” he whispers as he slips his fingers out.

Then he swallows Yusuf down to the root, the clean and sharp taste of the citrus dancing on his tongue, lapping at the vesicles lingering along Yusuf’s cock. He has to place one hand on Yusuf’s stomach to keep his hips from thrusting into his mouth as Yusuf groans, gripping Nicolò’s hair a little tighter. Nicolò’s other hand, fingers still wet from Yusuf’s lovely ministrations, comes around underneath his lover’s body. Yusuf’s ass is as plump as the roundness of the _arancia_ , and he cups it into his palm as he spreads one cheek.

He can hear the shaky exhale Yusuf gives as his fingers circle Yusuf’s furled rim. He sinks the first finger in to his knuckle, knowing Yusuf can take it, opening up easily for him. Always so easy for him. He pulls off and tells as much to Yusuf, who only spreads his legs out further, as if banishing shame from his body.

Nicolò takes another orange slice and runs it down Yusuf’s taint, until he’s rubbing over where he’s pressing into Yusuf with his finger. He discards this piece, far more interested in the mess he’s made of Yusuf’s hole.

When he buries his face there, Yusuf makes a truly filthy sound, filthier than the sound Nicolò is making with his tongue, licking up the sap seeping down and around Yusuf’s opening. Nicolò breathes in, overwhelmed with the sweet scent mixed with Yusuf’s clean sweat.

Nicolò pulls back, reaching over to grab the bottle of oil they keep next to their bed. He slips his finger out, ignoring Yusuf’s pitiful whine, quickly replacing it with two slicked digits. He pushes inside, stretching him out as he leans over Yusuf’s body. Every inch is covered in sweat or dried juice and it’s more than likely uncomfortable but Yusuf is just lifting his hips into Nicolò’s hand, looking up at Nicolò with a delightfully dazed expression.

By the time the curves of their bodies find each other, hips notched together, all of Nicolò sunk deep inside of Yusuf, they are both quivering. Nicolò shifts his hips and Yusuf shouts, clamping dangerously hard onto Nicolò’s cock, making him curse and grip Yusuf’s hips tighter.

He knocks his forehead with Yusuf’s, sharing breaths and the sounds of pleasure, the purity of it emptying his heaving lungs.

“Mine,” he repeats, breathless but no less a demand, hands gripping and taking and holding. There is absolutely no room for give, for giving, _forgive me, lord, he is redefining religion at the altar of his mouth underneath mine._

“Yours,” Yusuf agrees, and Nicolò drops his head into Yusuf’s neck, overcome with love.

Everything smells of oranges, and it only serves to make Nicolò fuck him harder, to dig into the sweet carpels of his body; aching, aching, aching to get into the piths of the man that’s been driving him to distraction, to harvest his heart and hold it in his hands.

_Everything of me belongs entirely to you._

Nicolò draws almost all the way out of Yusuf, hanging there on the precipice of another perfect thrust, Yusuf a trembling coil of anticipation under him. Then he pushes in again, pinching his eyes shut at the sheer heat surrounding him. Yusuf is letting out a long moan, and Nicolò rises to the pitch, punching more of those sounds out as he increases his pace.

Yusuf has his neck bared, head thrown back into the pillows as Nicolò thrusts brutally into him. He is beauty incarnate, but that possessive heat inside of him is begging for Yusuf to lift his head up and keep his eyes on Nicolò, the way Nicolò can’t tear his eyes away from Yusuf. Wants Yusuf to feel as desperate as he does, to be reduced entirely to this clawing need in his gut.

_Look at me, look at me, look at me-_

As if hearing his thoughts, Yusuf raises his head and locks eyes with him. It sends Nicolò over the edge, crying out as he shoves himself deep and comes inside Yusuf. He has just enough sense left in him to get a hand around Yusuf, stroking him until he’s shivering and moaning into his own orgasm. He clenches around Nicolò’s cock as he does, pushing out another groan from him.

When he’s mostly recovered, he takes the last piece of orange from the bowl and holds it to Yusuf’s lips. When he parts his lips to take it, Nicolò quickly follows it with his lips in a slow, deep kiss. And there’s a quiet intimacy in this, Nicolò thinks, in tasting the same sweet thing in each other’s mouths. In tasting the same love in each other’s mouths.

It makes him want to taste something else, though. It’s not something they do very often, but the way it drives Yusuf wild each time – Nicolò can already feel the echoes of arousal stirring in him again.

He slips out of Yusuf, sliding down his body. He takes a moment to lick a stripe through Yusuf’s spend before hoisting Yusuf’s thighs over his shoulders, exposing his puffy, used hole. Hooking his thumbs in the sides, Nicolò plunges his tongue inside where Yusuf is full of his own spend.

Yusuf’s leg jolts in his grip, and he lets out a guttural moan, the sound going straight to Nicolò’s cock. One of Yusuf’s hands grip into Nicolò’s hair, the other digging into his shoulder blades, making a little _oh_ shape with his mouth, brows and muscles pinched together tightly.

Nicolò closes his eyes and sets himself to the task. Yusuf tastes and smells like _Nicolò_ now, and it makes him groan into Yusuf’s slippery skin, getting more comfortable on his stomach between Yusuf’s spread legs, bracketing Nicolò’s shoulders. He laps up at the spot where he’s leaking, pulling breathless gasps and moans out of his lover.

There’s an animalistic feeling growling low in his gut, at reducing Yusuf to a sloppy, slurring wreck. He presses the flat underside of his tongue against his rim, before pointing it and pressing it inside.

“Nico, _fuck!_ ”

Yusuf is mumbling, babbling in the first language they ever spoke with each other, the little blend of Tunisian-Ligurian they created together, that they still speak when they’re alone. It drips off his tongue and slides straight down Nicolò’s spine, sending another smug, possessive curl through him. No one else speaks this, could understand what Yusuf was saying, could reduce Yusuf to this. _No one but Nicolò._

Yusuf tugs Nicolò up insistently by his hair, and he goes easily, hovering over Yusuf’s hard body.

“Nico, in me, again, please-”

“You want me to have you again, my Yusuf?” Nicolò murmurs, thumbs rubbing into the back of Yusuf’s thighs.

Yusuf nods eagerly, and Nicolò guides himself back inside, finding a home in Yusuf’s body yet again.

_I will have you, again and again and again, as long as I am allowed, as long as you will want me._

* * *

Here’s the thing: it’s not about the oranges. It’s not even about the woman; Yusuf has told him before how he’s always desired men, that his preferences have been known to him for most of his life.

But Yusuf and Nicolò have been lovers for hundreds of years. It’s not completely unexpected for them to want to…explore other options. But are there other options, really, when Nicolò is the only man capable of sharing this life with Yusuf?

Nicolò has always believed they are bound together by destiny. But is that the only thing keeping them together?

He wants only Yusuf. He _only_ wants Yusuf. For the rest of time, he wants Yusuf. By his side, in his bed, inside of him and underneath him.

Memories and images press behind his eyelids; the endless Maghreb desert; brown eyes seeking his from the wall; getting on his knees between Yusuf’s legs in the Sistine Chapel; the arch of the entrance to the Santa Maria di Castello in Genoa and the arch of Yusuf’s back as he buries himself inside Nicolò; Yusuf’s hand, outstretched to his own in Jerusalem; intertwining them together in the Parthenon.

The curve of the orange peel and the curve of Yusuf’s inner elbow as it fits itself over Nicolò’s middle every night. The enduring passing of time and bread across an open fire.

* * *

His questions are answered for him, less than a week later, when Yusuf returns from the market emptyhanded, with a stunned expression plastered onto his face.

“Did you forget something?” Nicolò asks, warring between amused and concerned.

The latter wins out when he doesn’t get a reply. Nicolò frowns, crossing the small living area to take the empty rucksack clenched in Yusuf’s hands, replacing it with his own.

“Yusuf?” Nicolò prompts, lifting one of their joined hands to his mouth.

When Nicolò grazes the knuckle with his lips, Yusuf clears his throat, blinking at Nicolò before huffing out a small breath of laughter.

“She propositioned me. She- she made some comments about how we could perhaps share _more than an orange_ ,” Yusuf says, shaking his head in incredulity, “Can you believe that? As if anyone could think there was another for me.”

Something must show in Nicolò’s face that gives away his shock, because Yusuf’s eyes narrow.

“You know this, yes Nicolò? Please tell me you know this,” Yusuf implores, big eyes boring into Nicolò.

Nicolò hesitates, chewing the inside of his lip. He opens his mouth to explain, “Well, I know you don’t prefer women-”

“ _No one_ else,” Yusuf cuts him off, hands cupping Nicolò’s face.

His voice and eyes now are perhaps the severest Nicolò thinks they have ever been since they became lovers. Nicolò can only nod, heart thudding heavily in his chest, and then Yusuf is kissing him fiercely. Nicolò lets himself be swept up in it, tongue tied and tantalised, before Yusuf pulls away.

“To think you could be bought with oranges,” Nicolò jokes, softer than he means to, feeling far too silly for a man hundreds of years old.

“To think I could be bought with _anything,_ when I have you,” Yusuf replies, just as tenderly, thumb swiping his jaw.

* * *

They plant their own orange tree, in the end.

Nicolò finds he quite likes the fragrance, after all, as he watches Yusuf pluck the fruit from the tree outside their window, many lifetimes later.

There's sunlight pouring through the green leaves hanging from the large branches, the roots of their tree digging deep into the earth, saying, _we were here, and we loved each other._

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if you liked this by leaving a comment! I really appreciate them <3  
> I'm on [tumblr!](https://peachpitandpomegranate.tumblr.com/)


End file.
